I started from the question of

"How come some people enjoy

other people's suffering, so that it makes

violence enjoyable, so that people find it heroic

to punish people that they

judge as bad?" And then:

"How come other people in the same society

are just the opposite, they get their joy

not in believing that there's bad people

that need to be punished, but they get their joy

in contributing the people's wellbeing?"

So I then saw, that there was quite a different language,

and quite a different consciousness

on the part of people who behaved in the violent way

as opposed to the compassionate way.

And I decided to try to clarify that what is

the nature of communication that helps us to connect

in a way in which we enjoy contributing

to each other's wellbeing.

And how is that process of communication different in thepeople who

contribute to the violence of others.

Then after I developed

Nonviolent Communcation which is the language

and could be power usage that I saw

contributing to compassionate interactions,

I then wondered where the hell did we learn

this other approach and then I got interested in

where did it all begin

where we learned the way of thinking and communicating

that contributes to violence on our Planet

And here scolars and scientists

like Walter Wink, the theologian, in his book

"The powers that be...?

and others who share his perspective

trace this back to about 8000 years ago

and various things happened I won't go into now,

but we came out of it

with organizing ourselves in terms

where a few people who claimed to be superior,

dominate others. Sometimes they based their superiority

claiming that their family is born closer to God

so they controlled on the basis of

the divine rights of kings.

But whatever it is, we started to live in cultures

in which a few people claiming to be superior,

dominated others. And that requires a language

of domination. A language in which

we classify people in terms of

what they are, if they are peons or they are royalty,

are they good, are they bad, are they normal, or abnor-mal.

That way of thinking goes with domination

because in the domination structure

the people who claim to be on the top

claim to know what is right and what is wrong,

and they maintain their power

through the use of power-over tactics, such as

punishment, reward, guilt, shame,

and so they need a language that justifies

the use of punishment and reward,

the language of retributive justice,

in which you make judgements of what the other persondeserves,

and that is depending on how you

judge them: are they good or bad, right or wrong, and soforth.

So that's how I think it all began

at about 8000 years ago, when we started to have

domination structures in which a few people

dominated many, before that

when we were more in a hunter-gatherer

style of society,

people that I trust in their studies antropologically

tell me, we didn't have violence

in a way that we have since.

So Nonviolent Communication now

tries to get us back to what I take

as a more natural way of communicating.

I think, where we have gotten

is an evolutionary snag where we have gotten stuck

on the basis of some unfortunate learning

over 8000 years

and Nonviolent Communication helps us come back tolife.

back to a more natural way of living

where there are evaluations around the basis

of how our needs are served, are we meeting

our needs and the needs of others.

Rather than who is what, who is right or who is wrong,

who's good and who's bad, no.

Our needs getting met, and if not,

what can we do, so that everyones needs get met.

That's the language of Nonviolent Communication.

Our training is based on the assumption

that the kind of beliefs and judgements

that people have, that led them to dehumanize

one and other, and to deny each others rights,

that language rethinked is a distortion

of need language that people are trying to say:

it is our needs are in danger. Some of our needs are indanger.

But they are not given

a language that helps them to say that

so they go to justifying this on the basis of

what their interpretation is,

of what words were there written down centuries before,

the Bible says, or the Koran says,

and they then try to use these documents

as justifying that they are right

and the other side is wrong.

So when I am mediating between two groups

that are thinking that way, who are at war with each other,

each time they use that kind of thinking

I translate it into an unmet need.

So when I'm working in two groups, sich as two tribes

that I was working with in Northern Nigeria

that were at war with each other, and I asked,

what needs of yours are not being met, and I am confi-dent

that if we can get everybodies needs clarified,

we'll find a strategy for meeting the needs of people

on both sides.

And a member, a chief from the Christian tribe immedi-ately

screams across the table: "These people are murderers!"

The other people screamed back: "These people havebeen

dominating us for 80 years."

You see? I asked for needs, and they

both gave me an analysis of the other side's pathology.

Sometimes the analysis takes the form of:

"Our Constitution says...",

and the other side says: "No, it doesn't say that, itsays...".

Or "the Bible says no, but the Koran says..."

So when people are...

when I ask for needs, and they

immediately go into these intellectual judgements

that justifies their position,

I translate that into what needs are herebeing expressed

through that. So when the chief screamed

that people are murderers, I said:

"Chief, are you saying that

your need for safety isn't being met?"

You see, so I hear the need behind theanalysis.

And if I guess wrong, he can help me,

but I am looking for needs. But I haven't toguess right,

that's not too hard to guess what the needmight be. He said:

"Oh, that's exactly what I am saying!"

"Ok". Then I try to get the other side tohear the need. So I said

to the chief on this side: "Please tell me

what you heard this chief said his needswere?

The chief on the other side of the tablescreamed across the table:

"Why did you kill my son?"

I am totally ahead of time, but 3 people inthe room

knew that somebody who had killed amember of their family

was in the group.

So it's not easy even when you get peopleto express the needs,

it's not easy to see that in the other per-son. When you have

these enemy images. So I had to workhard

to get the chief on the second side just tohear that,

just to tell me, that : "What are you hear-ing me say?"

"He is saying, yeah, he has a need forsafety."

Just even that makes a big difference, yousee?

We are out of this intelectual analysis jus-tifying position,

and we are connecting at the level ofhuman needs.

Then I helped the other side get clearwhat their needs were.

And who would buy the first side.

And at that point, that one of the chief

that hadn't said anything jumped up andsaid:

"If we know how to speak this way, wedon't have to kill each other!"

It can take long, even this culture, to pre-

vent,

this one chief at least to see,

that if you can just talk about your needsand not run into

analysis of who's right or wrong,

we can solve anything!

So we not only have to get one side tosay clearly what's alive in them,

what needs of yours are not getting met,

then I have to get the other side to con-nect with that.

And that's not easy, even if it is a simplemessage,

because if the other side's brain has beenprogrammed

to be diagnosing the pathology on thisperson,

even if I have said this person says hehas

a need for safety, I had to ask that personat least

3 or 4 times to repeat it back,

after I repeated it, because his first reac-tion is

"Then why did you kill my son?" And thenthing next was:

"You can't trust these people, they'll sayanything!"

And then it took a while before I couldgive him

the understanding he needed,

to be able to just to hear a simple phrasea man said,

that he has a need for safety and that isn'tbeing met.

By the way, some of the conlicts havebeen end over.

Huhh, that took a lot of work, just to getthat far,

but once I adopt it, so the empathy is thesecond party

is seeing this other person's humanness

in a way we see this humanness is byseeing the needs

without these enemy images cloudingthem.

It's not easy to do that.

That requires full presence

to what is alive in this other person.

We teach people, how to hear the needs

on two parts of ourselves.

One part of ourself is that part,

that evaluates what we do. Every actionwe take,

we need to evaluate it

about whether it meets our needs or not.

If I cook a meal for myself, I need to eval-uate

did it meet my need for nurturance, taste,etc.

And if it did'nt, then I want to change that.

So whether it's something I did for myself,

or if I say something to another person,

sometimes it doesn't meet the needs ofmine.

So I need to evaluate it. How do I evalu-ate?

If I evaluate it by attacking myself,

I say: "that was a stupid thing to do!",

we instead suggest the people,

that you evaluate what you do by whetherit met

your needs or not. You'll find that you can

learn better, without loosing self-respect,

if we can learn from our mistakes by beingconscious

of what need wasn't met, to begin with,

and then to understand another part ofourselves:

what need were we trying to meet bydoing what we did?

So that's the same process I was saying

using between 2 groups, but I'm using itwithin myself

between 2 different functions withinmyself:

the function that evaluates what I do,

the function that choses to do what I do.

And when I evaluate them in a way

I was educated to evaluate, I'd say tomyself:

"That was a stupid thing to do! How canyou do

something so dumb?" And then if I look atthe other side

of myself about why I do it: "I had to do it,I had no choice!"

it denies responsibility, and I can havethat

going on within myself forever!

And if I do, I will have a lot of depression,guilt,

and shame, and it would be very hard tolearn

from my human limitations! But if I cansee the truth,

the truth is: I didn't meet this need of mineby what I did.

What need was I trying to meet?

Oh, yeah, I was trying to meet this thing.

Or it met that need, but the way I did it,

didn't meet this other need.

OK, how do I get both needs met? If I canthink

in term of needs, I am far more likely tolearn from my limitations,

without loosing self-respect.

In our training we suggest the people

that we look at what causes things likedepression.

We look at it in a way other

than to think: "because there's somethingwrong with us,

that we get depressed, that that's somemental illness".

We have reasons for worrying about

the whole concept of mental illness.

We think that some people, who we callmentally ill,

they have some physical problems thataffect their thinking

and their chemistry, so that they think thatthey're something

they're not, or they think that people are

trying to attack them that aren't.

So this can be caused by some physicaldisfunction

and I wouldn't wanna call them mental ill-nesses, I would wanna say

this person has neurological or chemical

imbalance or something.

These are the smallest percentage of peo-ple get labelled

mentally ill have those kind of problems.

The other's I think it's a very unscientific

term to use mental illness,

but worse than unscientific, by making itseem,

like people have something wrong withinthem.

We don't look at what really contributes

to things, like depression, and to the kindof violence

we have on the planet.

Our understanding in NonviolentCommunication is

that people get dpressed, very depressed,

because of how they are trained to think,

how they are educated to think!

And they get stuck in this thinking anddepression is the result of it.

So we don't see it as an illness,

we with people who have that, we try tohelp them

become conscious of what you are tellingyourself that's making you

so depressed and then we show themhow

what you are telling yourself, the judge-ment

you make of yourself, simply are

resulting because a need of yours hasn'tbeen met.

And unfortunately we haven't been edu-cated to

get connected to the need,

so when that need isn't being met,

you go up to your head and start blamingyourself, shaming yourself,

attacking yourself. And that depression is

an inevitable result of how you think aboutyourself.

So we show people how to transform

that thinking about themself into

a language of love. If you say: "I shouldn'tbe depressed,

there's something wrong with me for beingdepressed,

which is what we give, the idea to people,that: "you are mentally ill,

if you are depressed, or you have bypo-lared illness."

They now not only have

the results of this thinking that makesthem depressed,

now they think there's something wrongwith them for being depressed,

so they 're doubly depressed,

because they're judging themselves forjudging themselves.

So we say: "No, there's nothing wrongwith you, to do that,

you think that way, 'cause you're trainedto think that way."

That brings some beauty into that,

if you can see the need of yours that was-n't met behind that, you came

learn here from something, you can bettermeet your needs.

But if you don't get connected to the needof yours that isn't being met

you just stay up in your head, saying: " I'ma failure,

I will never amount to anything!" Or youask yourself

unanswerable questions, such as: "Whydid I do that?"

When you really know the answer, you'realready

telling yourself: "I did it, 'cause I am a fail-ure, I am a looser."

So if you just communicate that way

internally, you gonna spend a good dealof your life being depressed!

It doesn't mean that there's somethingwrong

with you; it means, you've been educated

to think that way.

If you take a look at the last 8000 years

through the eyes of Teilhard de Chardin,

the priest and the paleontologist,

he sees a rapid movement back

to a more natural way, he calls it Christ-consciousness,

but my Palestinian friends call this

Islam, and anyway, all of them see us

as moving back to what is really what weknow

that the good life is enriching life

contributing to people's wellbeing.

It's not competeing and winning, it's beingconscious

we're all created out of the same energy,

nobody can benefit at somebody else'sexpense,

so our economy which is it's success ismeasured

by wheteher the rich get richer and thepoor get poorer

we're coming to see that

that's not gonna meet anybody's needs.

When I ask people all over our planet inmy work

to think of something they did recently,

that enriched somebody's life, and any-body can usually

think of it, although it takes a while, 'causewe everyday

do so many things that do that' so part ofus,

that we don't think of it, you know we

say we give verbal greetings and they'redesigned to

connect in a pleasant way with people, wecook meals for people,

we do touch them in ways we get nour-ished.

So very often it takes a while before peo-ple

can answer this question, but then theyget something in mind

that they've done for somebody in the last

24 hours. Now I say:

"Focus your attention on how you thinkthat enriched their life.

In terms of their needs. What needs oftheirs were met

how do you think that left them feeling?

When people start to imagine and you cansee

a beam come out on their face, in theireyes,

and you say: "How do you feel right now,

when you realize that you did somethingthat had that impact on people?"

And people say: "Oh, I feel good. I feelhappy,

I feel delighted." Then I ask them

this question: "Do any of you know any-thing

that's more fulfilling than to do that,

to use the power we have

in a way that contributes to people's well-being?

And that's that question all over the plan-et,

and nobody has ever said to me that:"Yeah, if you get a Lexus

that's better, or if you...you know...

if you get these kind of culturally induced

rewards that that's better!" NO, peoplesay,

the most fulfiling thing is to contribute topeople's

wellbeing. Well, that's play then, that's the

most enjoyable play that we humanbeings engage in:

to contribute to people's wellbeing.

Now sometimes that play can involve hardwork.

Because I may work very hard

to do something that contributes to peo-ple's

wellbeing. Sometimes I travel a long way

across the world to offer something topeople

that has enriched my life. But it's play

when my full focus of attention is on why Iam doing it.

I am not doing it for money, i'm not doingit

to get a positive reportcard I 'm doing it'cause something that has increased

joy in my life, it's joyful to share it with oth-ers

it's a fun game. And it's

the most fun game I've ever found: con-tributing to people's wellbeing.

I'm really confident that that's the most ful-filing game

we human beings will ever find.

So Teilhard de Chardin sees a rapid evo-lution

he just sees this last 8000 years

as just a temporary snag in our evolution

where some things let us to get culturallyignorant

and to get involved in violence and com-petition...

So it's just an evolutionary

phenomenon, and he sees

a rapid movement back to the more natu-ral

consciousness. Well, I agree with him,

that it's happening and I think it's rapid,

but my not being a paleontologist

I don't think in terms of tens of thousandsof years

I have a granddaughter, I would like tosee

as speeded up. We are living on a planet

where we have enough resources to meeteverybody's needs

we have enough food so that it isn't nec-essary

for millions to starve.

We have the medicines that could be pre-venting

millions from dying of diseases.

So it's only the consciousness that weneed to alter,

and there is a rapid movement toward theevolution

of this consciousness, I just want us to doit faster.

The Basics of NonviolentCommunication with Marshall B.Rosenberg, PhD The followingpresentation is from a 1 dayIntroductory Workshop held inSan Francisco, CA in April, 2000Part 1: The Purpose ofNonviolent Communication &Expressing Observations andFellings ...but first, let me beginby clarifying the purpose ofNonviolent Communication. Itspurpose is to help you to dowhat you already know how todo. Why do we need to learnsomething today that youalready know how to do?Because sometimes we forget todo this. We forget becausewe've been educated to forget.Now, what is it that I'm talkingabout that we already know howto do? The purpose of thisprocess is to help us to connectin a way that makes natural giv-ing possible. Natural giving pos-sible. What do I mean by naturalgiving? Let me do you a song tomake it clear what I mean bynatural giving. ? I never feelmore given to than when youtake from me ? ? when youunderstand the joy I feel caringfor you ? ? and you know mygiving isn't done to put you in mydebt ? ? but because I want tolive the love ? ? I feel for you. ?? To receive with grace may bethe greatest giving ? ? there's noway that I can separate the two? ? when you give to me I giveyou my receiving ? ? and whenyou take from me I feel so givento ? You all know that giving.You know how to do it. Andthat's what I'm interested in, ourremembering to stay with thatquality of giving moment bymoment in any connection. Butwe also all know it's easy to loseit. It's easy to lose that connec-tion, so that instead of enjoyingthat quality of giving, which ispossible every moment, in everycontact we have, in spite of howprecious that is, we forget. Andinstead of playing the game thatthat song is about which I call"making life wonderful", - it's themost fun game I've ever heard -instead, much of the time weplay another game called "who'sright?" Have you ever playedthat game? [laughter] It's a gamewhere everybody loses. Isn't thisamazing, that we all know aboutthis quality of giving that thesong was about - it's possibleevery moment, we... we find that

the richest thing to do - andmuch of our life we end up play-ing "who's right?" Now, the gameof "who's right?" involves two ofthe most devious things humanbeings have ever come upon.One, punishment. See, 'cause ifyou're wrong in the game of"who's right?" then you deserveto suffer. Can you imagine amore diabolical concept to edu-cate people? If you haven'talready abstained from punish-ment, I'm sure by the end of theday, that will no longer be a partof your consciousness. No morepunishment. You won't do it inyour families, we'll get rid of itwith criminals, it just makesthings more violent, we'll findother ways to deal with othernations besides punishment. Nomore punishment. No morereward. it's the same game. It'spart of the game of "who'sright?" If you're right, you getrewarded. If you're wrong, youget punished. No more. Nomore. It has created enough vio-lence on the planet. No moreguilt induction. See? No moreshame. No more concepts ofduty and obligation. Just whatthe song is about, natural giving.So, how did we get off target?We got off target, according toWalter Wink, a theologian, whowrites in his book "The PowersThat Be", we got off target about5,000 years ago. We... we lost...We got off target because westarted to get some wild thinking.Wild thinking that human beingsare innately evil. When youbelieve that, that human beingsare innately evil, then if thingsaren't going as we would like,what's the corrective process?The corrective process is peni-tence. See? If people are evil,you think that the way to bringabout change when people arebehaving in a way you don't likeis to make people hate them-selves for what they're doing.So, for these political reasonsand theological reasons, westarted to develop a Ianguage,that I call jackal Ianguage. It's alanguage that cuts us off fromlife and... ...makes it very easy tobe violent, very easy to be vio-lent. In fact, in that book I men-tioned, Wink says that domina-tion cultures... one of the thingsyou have to educate people is tomake violence enjoyable. See?And we've done a good job ofthat. We make violence enjoy-

able in our culture. For 2 hours anight, from 7 to 9, when childrenare watching television the most,in 75% of the programs theywatch, the hero either killssomebody or beats them up.You see? And when does thishappen? At the climax of theprogram. We've been educatedfor quite a while to make vio-lence enjoyable, Even though Ithink what that song was aboutis what is really closer to ournature, this natural giving, we'vebeen educated to make violenceenjoyable, and educated in away we can even be violent toour children. So what is jackal-language like? Jackal-language,as I've mentioned, is a languageof moralistic judgments. Youthink in terms of who's right,who's wrong, who's good, who'sbad, and when you mentionchange, yes, we want change attimes, so how do you getchange in the jackal-system?Watch a parent try to bring aboutchange in the child. This is aparent teaching a young child, tosay one of the most importantwords in jackal. "- Say you'resorry. - I'm sowwy. - You're notreally sorry. I can see it. You'renot really sorry. [crying] - I'msorry. - OK, I forgive you." Canyou imagine a game like that?Can you imagine a parentresponding to a child that way?And if a parent is gonna do thatto a child in their own family,what are they gonna do to peo-ple from other cultures whobehave in a way they don'tappreciate? Of course you'regonna have violence whereveryou have this kind of thinking. Incultures that do not have thisthinking, you don't see violence,you see? So... That's how wegot off target. Even though wecould be playing the game"make life wonderful" eachmoment, we have been educat-ed for quite a while to playanother game "who's right?" Sowhat are the parts of this gameof "who's right?" I've just men-tioned one of them. One part ismoralistic judgments; Iearninghow to go up to our head andthink basically in terms of rightand wrong, good and bad, nor-mal / abnormal. I Iearned thisgame very well. I speak severaldialects of jackal. [laughter] Igrew up speaking... I grew up inDetroit. We spoke a rather harshdialect of jackal. You might call it

Detroit jackal. [laughter] Forexample, if I am out driving andsomeone is driving in a way thatI don't like, and again, I want toinstall change, you see? I rolldown the window "Idiot!" [laugh-ter] Now, theoretically, the per-son is supposed to repent. See?[laughter] "I confess I waswrong, sir. I will change the errorof my ways." It's a great theory.It didn't work. I have tried it morethan once. It doesn't work. So Ithought maybe it was that partic-ular dialect of jackal. So I decid-ed to get a more cultured use ofjackal, so I went to the universityand got a doctor's degree in pro-fessional jackal. [laughter] Now,when somebody is driving in away I don't like, I roll down thewindow "psychopath!" [laughter]Still doesn't work! You see?There's another part of thisIanguage of jackal."Amtssprache", That's veryimportant. You see? A languagethat denies choice, deniesresponsibility for our actions. Iuse the word "amtssprache" forthis part, having read an inter-view with the nazi war criminalAdolf Eichmann. In his trial forwar crimes in Jerusalem,Eichmann was asked: "was ithard to send tens of thousandsof people to their death?" andEichmann answered candidly.He said: "to tell you the truth, itwas easy. Our Ianguage made iteasy." That answer shocked hisinterviewer, and his interviewersaid "what Ianguage?"Eichmann said "in fact, my fellownazi officers and I, we had ourown name for our language. Wecalled it amtssprache" Amt ingerman means "office" andssprache "language" I'd call thatbureaucratic language. He wasasked for some examples.Eichmann said: "it's a languagein which you deny responsibilityfor your... your actions. So ifsomebody ask you why you didit, you say "I had to"; then youdon't feel so bad if you have todo it, you see, you're not respon-sible. "But why did you have to,jackal? - Superior's orders.Company policy. They made medo it. I couldn't do elsewise."Very dangerous Ianguage,amtssprache. Very dangerous.We have giraffe schools. I usethe word "giraffe" you see, as asymbol for nonviolence. We'llsee today that the languagewe're gonna study is the lan-

guage of the heart. And so I usegiraffe Ianguage for that,because giraffes have thelargest heart of any land animal,so... Giraffe requires... alwaysbeing conscious of choice. Yousee? We never do anything thatwe don't choose to do. But I wasteaching giraffe to a group ofparents and teachers in onecommunity, and we have giraffeschools throughout the world.We have 5 in Israel, 4 inPalestine, some in Serbia, andso forth. And in giraffe schools,of course, we want to make surethat the teachers and parentsnever use amtssprache. One ofthe most dangerous languagesin the world, to teach a child youhave to do something. So I wassaying this one time in St. Louis,Missouri, to a group of parentsand teachers, and a mother gotvery upset. She said: "but thereare some things you have to do,whether you like to do it or not.It's our job as parents to teachour children what they have todo. I mean, there's things I doevery day that I hate to do, butthere just are some things youhave to do. - Well" I said "couldyou give me an example?" Shesaid "Well, easy, there's somany. Let me think. Ok. Likewhen I leave here tonight, I haveto go home and cook. I hate tocook. I hate it with a passion, butI have done it every day for 20years; even when I have beensick". [laughter] - Well," I said "I'llbe very happy today to showyou another way of thinking,another Ianguage, that I hopewould open up happier possibili-ties for you." Well, I'm pleased toreport she was a rapid giraffestudent. She went home thatvery evening and announced toher family that she no longerwanted to cook. [laughter] I gotsome feedback from her family.[laughter] The feedback came 2weeks Iater, when I swungthrough that city again and wasdoing an evening workshop, andwho shows up, her 2 older sons;she had 4 sons. They came upat the beginning to introducethemselves, and I said "Hey, I'mglad you guys came up here.I've been very curious what'sgoing on in your family. Yourmother has been calling me reg-ularly telling me about all thechanges she made in her lifesince the training. Like whathappened that first night when

she came home and announcedthat she no longer wanted tocook?" The oldest son said tome, "Marshall, I said to myself,thank God" [laughter] [still laugh-ing] I said "Help me understandthat one." He said "I said tomyself, 'now maybe she won'tcomplain at every meal' yousee?" Natural giving, what Istarted the day off with thatsong, anything we do in Iife thatisn't coming out of that energy,we pay for it and everybody elsepays for it. Anything we do out offear of punishment if we don't,everybody pays for it. Anythingwe do for a reward, everybodypays for it. Everything we do tomake people like us, everybodypays for it. Everything we do outof guilt, shame, duty, obligation,everybody pays for it. That isn'twhat we were designed for. Wewere designed to enjoy giving, togive from the heart. - Marshall? -Yes? - I'm over here. My sonbrought me to one of your semi-nars, and I met you some 10years ago, in Oakland. Now, I'mtrying to bring my son back. I'mhere, and he... said Iast nightwhen I told him I was cominghere, he said "well, why don'tyou go? I have a couple ofappointments. maybe you couldteach me something". So Ithought I would come to Iearnsomething. Maybe I can teachhim. But I'd like to teach him,and I don't know how to do that.I'd like to teach him to at Ieastgive me the time of day to com-municate with him. He doesn'tdo that, willingly. And when I tryto demand it, it becomes worse.- Yes. - So how do I do that? -Well, that would be a good situa-tion to work on today, becauseI'm going to ask everyone tothink of a situation right nowwhere somebody is behaving ina way you don't like. In this caseit's your son, who when you askhim to communicate, he saysno. The first thing I'll suggest isyou can't teach anybody any-thing. And to have that as anobjective is itself to create prob-lems. So, let's change the objec-tive. Let's never try to teach any-body anything or to change any-body. If that's your objective,you'll create resistance. So thatwould be my first suggestiontoday. Never try to teach any-body anything or to change any-body. Is that clear? - Yeah. - Ok.- So what do you do then? Give

up? - Oh, no, no, no, See, this isthe thinking that's been shapedin us by jackals, see? The gameof "who's right?", win-lose, sothen if we can't change and win,then the option we think of is tobe a chump and Iose. You see?We have been educated to thinkin those 2 ways, win-lose, right-wrong. No, I'll show you a way.Another option. Ok. Let's get intoit. Let's give you a chance topractice it. Some of you havealready thought of situations,such as somebody you wantvery much to communicate with,they say no. So, think of some-body at the moment who isbehaving in a way that is notmaking life wonderful for you,and you'd Iike to get to the placethat the song was about, whereeverybody's needs can get met,and people are giving to oneanother from the heart, willingly,not out of coercion. You see?Let's see if we can show you aprocess to get there in this situa-tion, to get everybody's needsmet, and where people give will-ingly, not out of any coercion.So, maybe you are living athome, maybe you choose todayto work on a child that you areliving with at home who sayshorrible, horrible jackal-things,such as "no." [laughter] Oh, youlaugh! You try living with one fora while. "Please brush yourteeth! - No" Maybe you are livingat home with a jackal-speakingpartner, who says horrible jackal-things, such as "that hurts mewhen you say that." We'll seetoday that it's a violent act to sayothers make you feel as you do.See? To imply that others canmake you feel hurt or angry.Maybe at work somebody isbehaving in a way you don't like.They come Iate. They're not pro-ducing as well as you would like.Maybe your next door neighborhas been sexually molestingchildren. Whoever you want topick, somebody who is behavingin a way you don't like, andyou'd Iike to see how we wouldarrive at the objective of creatingthe quality of connection that willget everybody's needs metthrough natural giving. That's ourobjective. Ok? Now, open upyour materials to... ...the Iastpage. Second to the last page.At the top, it says: "Expressinghow we are and what we wouldlike" and it says under "A","Think of someone who does

something that makes life lessthan wonderful for you." Thisperson that I'm asking you tothink about, who is presentlybehaving in a way you're notcrazy about, and what I'd likeyou to do is answer this ques-tion. Write here one thing thatthe person does that you don'tlike. We're gonna work on onespecific action that the persondoes that you don't like, to getyou familiar with the processtoday. Maybe the person doesseveral things, but we're gonnashow you how the processworks by showing you how tocommunicate with the personabout one specific thing they do.So, write under "A" one thingthis person does that you don'tIike. Now, when I was here inSan Francisco working with theschool system back in the 70s,the superintendent in theschools asked me to go into anelementary school. He said theparents are complaining aboutthe quality of relationshipbetween these teachers and theadministrator. They said the ten-sion in the school is so greatthat the parents want to taketheir children out of the school.So he asked if I would go in, seeIf I could open up better commu-nication between the staff andthe administrator. The plan was,I would meet first with the teach-ers and then get the teachersand the administrator together.So in my meeting with the teach-ers, I started with the questionthat I just asked you. I said tothe teachers "Can you tell meone thing that the administratordoes that makes it hard for youto work with him?" I was askingfor an observation. A concretebehavior. What is one thing hedoes? The first teacher torespond said this "He has a bigmouth" Now, can you see thedifference between the questionI asked and the answer I got? Idid not ask "what size mouthdoes the principal have?" [laugh-ter] So this teacher was givingme an evaluation, an analysisthat implies wrongness. Yousee? We have been so trainedto think that way that sometimeswe can't separate fact and opin-ion. All we see is our enemyimage. Whether it's an individualor a nation, we have beentrained to think in enemy imagesof wrongness. It obscures reality.We don't see the behavior. We

just see our enemy image. In hisbook "Out Of Weakness"Andrew Schmookler says thatwhen cultures are taught to thinkthis way, not to just see the per-son, but an image, a judgmentthey've made, bombs are neverfar away. You see? So I pointedthis out to the gentleman thatthis was not an answer to myquestion, I wanted to know onething that the principal did. Thisman was stuck. He just couldn'tget it. The woman sitting next tohim tried to help. She said:"Well, I know what he's referringto." I said "OK, help him out.What's one thing that the princi-pal does?" "He talks too much."No, "too much" is a judgment. Iasked for an observation, not ajudgment. See, this is how jack-al-speaking people think. Theyreally have been brought up tothink there is such a thing as ajust-right amount of everything.and too much and too little, andthat they know what it is. See?So they think that way. It doesn'tmake resolving conflicts tooeasy with them, when peoplehave an idea that there is a rightand a too much and a too littleand they know what it is. Andespecially when they mix it upwith an observation. I was justasking "what does the persondo?" and, for the second time,this person couldn't see thebehavior separate from the judg-ment. A third person tried tohelp. "Well, I know what they'retalking about. - Ok, what? - Hethinks he's the only one that hasanything worth saying. - No.Telling me what you think hethinks is an evaluation you'remaking of what you think isgoing on in his head. I was ask-ing for 'what does he do?'" Afourth woman said, "He wants tobe the center of attention all thetime." I said, "Now you're givingme a judgment or a diagnosis ofhis motives. Even if it's accurate,it's a diagnosis of his motives,it's not an observable behavior.My question was what does hedo?" Now, the entire faculty sitsthere quiet. Nobody can answerthe question. And one of thewomen said to me, "Boy,Marshall, that's hard to do." Yes.In fact, the philosopherKrishnamurti says that "toobserve without evaluating is thehighest form of human intelli-gence" So those of us who havebeen taught to think in these

enemy images, immediately tothink right-wrong, good-bad, nor-mal-abnormal, appropriate-inap-propriate, too this, too that... Wecan't see reality. All we see isour enemy images. Well, withgreat effort on my part, I finallygot them to get rid of the imagesand answer this simple question,"what does he do?" It was sever-al things, but the one that theywanted particularly to start work-ing with him on was this, thatduring their once-a-week facultymeetings, regardless of whatwas on the agenda, he wouldrelate it to a war experience or achildhood experience, and theaverage meeting lasted 20 min-utes longer than it was sched-uled. Ok. That answered myquestion of what he did. Hetalked about war experiences,childhood experiences, ratherthan sticking to the agenda. Isaid, "Have you called that to hisattention?" they said, "Well, wecan see now that when we try totalk to him about it, these otherjudgments get mixed in, and hegets defensive." So they thoughtit would be a good idea to talk tohim about it, but they asked if Iwould be at the meeting just incase. So I attended their nextstaff meeting, and I saw ratherquickly what they were talkingabout, because almost as soonas an issue came up, the princi-pal would say, "Oh, that remindsme of a time..." and he wouldstart to tell a story. and I waswaiting for somebody to confronthim on this, in giraffe, butinstead of that, there was a lot ofnon-verbal jackaling going on.People were going like this,rolling their eyes, poking the per-son next to them, yawning,Iooking at their watches, holdingthe watches up to the ears.[laughter] And I watched thisscenario going on for a while,and I said: "Excuse me, but...isn't somebody gonna say some-thing?" Now there's a silence,and the man who spoke up inour first meeting, I could just seehim getting his courage up, andhe looks at the principal andsays "Ed, you have a bigmouth." [laughter] So let's see ifwhether what you wrote downanswered the question I asked.Is it an observable behavior? Ordid you mix in any evaluation,and my 2 friends here will helpus to make this evaluation. Thisanimal has been taught some-

what Iike a police dog to sniff outnarcotics, if there's any jackalmixed in, he will howl, if youanswered the question, this ani-mal will dance. So sir, what didyou write down? - "My dadblames my wife..." - [howls] -"...for my choices." - He doeswhat? - "My dad blames my wifefor my choices." - Yes. Blames isa judgment. See? That's alreadyputting evaluation into it. Dad, doyou see yourself as blamingher? - No. I see myself as callingattention to the facts. So, see?Dad doesn't see that as blaming.- No, I'm educating. - Thank you,Dad. Yes. Ok. So, how do wesay it? We need a direct quote.To make it an observable behav-ior, we need to say "my fathersays..." what? - "All of his prob-lems..." - "You are responsiblefor all of his problems." He saysthis to the wife, "You are respon-sible for all of his problems."? -That's it. - Yes. Ok. That's adirect quote. That's what hesays. That's giraffe language.You made a direct quote. Ok?As soon as you... have the word"blame" in your consciousness,it's gonna change the wholeenergy with which you approachthe person, because you're basi-cally making a judgment of themas blaming, "which everybodyknows is wrong" you see? Yes?- I have the mic... "Lately, myson is not doing his historyhomework." - Ok. - "My Dadmakes harsh judgements andinsulting remarks." - Oh, myGod. You killed my poor jackal.[laughter] [still laughing] Hecould have handled the "harsh",that was one judgement, but"insulting", harsh and insulting...you know, see, those are 2 judg-ments. - Actually, he does useinsulting words. - No, there is nosuch thing. After today, in fact,seriously, by 4:30 this afternoon,you will never hear anotherinsult. It won't exist. Insults willnot exist. I'm gonna show youthe use of some technologytoday that takes insults and criti-cism out of the waves... air-waves. [laughter] So that nomatter what your father says,you can never hear anotherharsh statement or anotherinsult, because we're gonnashow you today how to use thistechnology. [laughter] [still laugh-ing] And with this technology, itwill be impossible for you to hearcriticism, harsh remarks,

insults... With these ears, all youcan hear is the only thing humanbeings are ever saying, "please"and "thank you". That's all...We're going to show you todaythat all what used to sound likecriticism, judgments, blame, aresimply tragic, suicidal expres-sions of "please". - "My brotheryells at me to get in the car to goto school, and then he makesme late to school. - Who yells? -This guy. - But, you see, "yells"is a kind of a little bit of an eval-uation. He speaks in a tone ofvoice? - Yeah. - OK. It's the toneof voice. I was asked at LincolnHigh School... is it Lincoln HighSchool in San Francisco? Manyyears ago, I was asked to workwith the faculty there. They werehaving a lot of tension amongstthe faculty, racially, ethnically.there was a lot of tensions, andthe superintendent asked me towork there, and I started the dayasking, "Tell me something thatsomebody else on the facultydoes that you don't Iike." A manturns to the woman next to himand says: "I don't Iike it whenyou yell in our faculty meetings."She says, "Who yells?" [laugh-ter] Now, she was from a differ-ent culture than this man. Whatwas yelling in her culture wasquite different. And about 10minutes later when she startedto yell at him by her own defini-tion, I saw a difference, youknow? So, raises the voice,when he's asking you to getready for school. Yes. - Or justkind of gets angry at me... - Getsangry... that's maybe accurate,but it's a diagnosis; we don'tknow whether he's angry. Hemight be scared, that you'regoing to miss school. It mightsound to you like angry. Maybe itis. Maybe it isn't; but "raises thevoice", "has smoke coming outof his ears..." that you can see.You see? That's observable.Yes? - "My fifth grader Jesserefuses to do his seat work." -[howl!] Refuses is a diagnosis.Maybe an accurate diagnosis,but it doesn't tell me what hedoes. - He says, "no, I don'twant to do it." - Says "no, I don'twant to do it." That's the behav-ior. - "My husband doesn't tellme things which will affect medeeply." - Ok. That's the firstjackal husband I've ever heardof. [laughter] - This is a newexperience for me today. - "Astudent in my class incessantly

talks loud, won't stay seated orkeep his hands to himself." - Ihear about 3 judgments in there.Let's go over it slowly, 'cause Ihear 3 diagnoses. Say it againso we'll hear the 3 diagnoses. -"...incessantly talks loud..." -Loud is your interpretation.Louder than you would like. Ifyou want to say it, put it thatway. "Louder than I would like" -"...won't stay seated..." - "Won't"is a diagnosis. "He doesn't stayin his seat after I've told him to".He might in the future. We don'tknow whether he will or not, sothat's a diagnosis. Doesn't at themoment. Doesn't when I ask himto stay in his seat. - "...and doesnot keep his hands to himself." -"...and does not keep his handsto himself." - Ok. Since comingto the introductory presentationon tuesday night, I've been veryaware of hearing evaluations. -Yes. - In myself, and especiallyin other people. And so I startedto wonder, are all of those vio-lent communications? Or wouldthere be a way that some ofthose are, according to thismodel, nonviolent? - I would saythat any evaluation of others thatimplies wrongness is a tragicexpression of an unmet need.tragic in the sense... for 2 rea-sons. First, it decreases the like-lihood that we will get what wewant. Even if we don't say it outloud, even if we think it, if we areeven thinking that what some-body else does is wrong, itdecreases the Iikelihood that wewill get what we want. And sec-ond, it increases the likelihood ofviolence. So, what could bemore tragic than that thanexpressing ourself in a way thatgets in the way of our gettingwhat we want, and increasesviolence? Anything that we wantto say that implies wrongness onthe part of the other person, I'msuggesting, is a tragic, suicidalexpression of an unmet need.Say the need. Learn a need con-sciousness, which is what we'regonna get to now. That's how weevaluate in nonviolent communi-cation. We evaluate from theheart. We make judgments, butwe make need-serving judg-ments. We judge whether whatpeople are doing is meetingneeds or not. We don't moralisti-cally judge the person for whatthey did. We judge whether it'sserving life or not, becauseneeds are our direct connection

with life. They're the life that...Needs are the life seekingexpression within us. So weevaluate with reference to that,and that requires 2 kinds ofIiteracy, feelings and needs. Solet's be sure that we are allspeaking the same languagewhen I use the term "feelings"and "needs". So under "B" itsays, "imagine that you are talk-ing directly to the person, andexpress how you feel when theperson acts in the way describedabove, and use this form:..."Again, we're talking to the otherperson. we're telling them nowwhat they did, and we say,"When you do this, I feel..."how? How do you feel when theperson does what you wrotedown under "A"? Write thatdown. - "When you do this, I feelangry. - Ok. Anger is a feelingcreated by unnatural thinking.We'll get to that next. [laughter] -"When you're not ready to Ieaveat the agreed time, I feel anxiousand impatient." - "When youspeak that loud, I feel intimidat-ed." - [howls] - Intimidated is adiagnosis. Be careful of wordsthat are more descriptions ofother people, what you thinkthey're doing to you, like intimi-dating you. So, write down thefollowing as not feeling words.Do not mistake these words asfeelings. I feel misunderstood. Ifeel used. I feel manipulated. Ifeel judged. I feel criticized. I feelignored. For example, aren'tthere times when you thinksomebody's ignoring you? Don'tyou feel relieved? [laughter] Andat other times don't you feelangry? You see? So words Iikethat really say very little aboutwhat's alive in you. They saymuch more about how you areinterpreting the other person'sbehavior, and above all, nevermistake the word "rejected" as afeeling. I feel rejected. No. That'snot a feeling. That's a suicidalinterpretation. Ok, who's got themic? There's the mic. - "Hurt,disappointed, disenheartened." -yup. - "Feel angry andbetrayed." - Angry, yes. [Howl]...for betrayed. Betrayed is one ofthose words Iike intimidated,ignored, misinterpreted, used,manipulated. It's more a diagno-sis of the other person than afeeling. - What about contract-ed? - Contracted? If you meantense and like that. Ok. If it'sthat. - "When you call me up

and, speaking loudly, tell me youare going to cut off funding, I feelangry and scared." - "When youleave the dishes in the sink, Ifeel powerless over my environ-ment and time, which feels frus-trating and scary." - "When youstart talking loudly in the middleof my sentence, I feel hurtbecause I think you are not lis-tening to me. - Yeah, the feelingis great, but you're gonna lose itwhen you follow the word "feel"with the word "because I think"Any time you're thinking, yourchance of getting what you needis greatly decreased. [laughter]Especially when you follow theword "think" with the word "you".Then I think you not only won'tget heard, I predict a defensive-aggressive reaction. So, it'sgonna be hard for people to careabout your feelings when youfollow that with a diagnosis thatimplies wrongness. But we'll getto that next, 'cause we're gonnasee next that we... After the feel-ings, there's 2 places we don'tgo. And one is up to our head.We stay in the heart with feel-ings. We don't go up to thehead. We stay in the heart andconnect with needs. But, we'llget to that. If we want to usenonviolent communication, wewant to be sure that we do notuse the feeling in a violent way.Because feelings can either con-nect us at the heart or they cancontribute to more division andviolence. So we certainly do notwant to ever express our feel-ings in this way: "I feel as I dobecause you..." Ok? We neverwant to express our feelings thisway: "You make me feel..." Now,that will be a hard habit to getaway from, because in a jackal-culture, feelings are very instru-mental to using guilt as a way ofmanipulating people. The way tomanipulate people is if you canconvince them that they makeyou feel as you do, then theyshould feel guilty and change.You see? It's another form of thisviolent game. So, for example, ifyou are a parent and you wantto use feelings in a violent wayrather than a connecting way,you would express them thisway: "It really hurts me whenyou don't clean up your room."[laughter] Ok? Or, "you make meangry when you say that." I wastalking during the break aboutone of my happiest days as aparent was when my oldest son

went to a jackal school for thefirst time. he had gone 6 yearsto a giraffe school that I hadhelped create, and, uh... butthen, I wanted him to learn howto enjoy jackals as well, so, uh...and in giraffe schools, we alsowant to be aware that the chil-dren are not always gonna be inthis setting, so we want them tolearn how to stay with their ownvalues regardless of which struc-ture they're in. You see? So hecomes back the first day fromschool, and he looked less thanhappy, and I said, "how was thenew school, Rick?" And he said,"It's ok, Dad, but... whew! boy...some of those teachers, Dad..." Isaid, "what happened?" He said,"Dad, I wasn't even in the frontdoor, really, i was halfwaythrough the front door, and someman teacher comes running overand says, "my, my, Iook at the lit-tle girl." Can you guess what theteacher was reacting to? Yeah,my son's hair was down to hisshoulders. See, in a jackal-school, as we all know, authorityknows what's right. See? There'sa right way to wear your hair asa boy and a wrong way. A rightway to do everything. And whoknows? The teacher. And whatdo you do if somebody doesn'tdo it? You use shame, guilt, andso forth. You use the word "girl"as though it's an insult. Welcometo jackal-land. So i'm gettingburned up, ready to go do a IittleBAT therapy with the teacher,[laughter] forgeting all about myteachings, and I said to my son,"How did you handle it?" Hesaid, "I remembered, Dad, whatyou said, that when you're inthat kind of environment, nevergive them the power to makeyou submit or rebel." One of thethings we want to teach childrenvery early, no matter what struc-ture you're in, never lose trackthat you are free to choose whatyou do. Don't allow institutions todetermine what you do. I said,"Hey, man, if you rememberedthat, that's a big gift. I really lovethat you could remember thatunder those conditions. Thenwhat did you do? - I put on mygiraffe ears, Dad, tried to hearwhat he was feeling and need-ing" I said, "You remembered todo that? What did you hear? -Pretty obvious, Dad. He lookedirritated and wanted me to cutmy hair. - Hey, wow, man, i'mreally glad you could remember

that. How did that leave you feel-ing?" He said, "Dad, I felt sad forthe man. He was bald andseemed to have a problemabout hair." [laughter] [still laugh-ing] So we want children thesame thing we want to teachadults. Institutions can't makeyou do anything. Other peoplecan't make you do anything. Nohuman being has ever doneanything they didn't choose todo. A palestinian in the village ofHebron disagreed with me onetime. He said, "I don't agree withyou, Marshall, that we onlychoose to do. Where was mychoice 2 days ago? A soldierputs a gun at my head and says,'Take off your clothes or I'll shootyou.' Where was my choice?" Isaid, "Seems pretty obvious tome. You had a choice of whetherto take off your clothes or not."He laughed. He said, "OK, I gotyour point. I chose not to take offmy clothes. That soldier knew Ididn't have a gun. He was doingthis to dishonor me. I chose torisk my Iife to protect my honor. -Ok, so... I'm not saying wealways Iike the choices we have,but nobody can make us do any-thing we don't choose to do. So Isaid, "Apparently the soldier alsochose not to shoot you. Or elseit was a very poor shot." [laugh-ter] My children taught me thisabout nobody does anythingthey don't choose to do. Fromthe time they were 2 years old,they educated me that I couldn'tmake them do anything. All Icould do is make them wish theyhad. [laughter] And then theytaught me another lesson. Thatany time I would do that, theywould make me wish I hadn'tmade them wish they had. Theytaught me that violence createsviolence. You see?

Part 2: Expressing Needs andRequests Ok, the next step then.We do not attribute responsibilityfor our feelings to the other per-son. We never say that "youmake me feel" or "I feel becauseyou..." Instead we are consciousthat the root of feelings areneeds. Behind every feelingthere is a need. Now certainfeelings tell us that there is anobstruction in our thinking. Thatinstead of our being directly con-nected to our needs we havechosen to go off to jackal land.So what are these feelings thattell us that we are not directly

connected to our needs? Anger,depression, guilt and shame.Those feelings are very valu-able. They tell us that at thismoment I'm not directly connect-ed to my needs. Instead we areup in our head telling ourselvesmoralistic judgments aboutsomebody. Anger, we're makingmoralistic judgments aboutsomebody else. Depression,guilt and shame, we're playingthat game on ourselves. But weare not alive as I would definebeing alive which is connectedto our needs. Do you make adistinction between needs andpreferences? - Yes we make abig difference as you'll see whenwe get to the next step now.Because needs contain no refer-ence to specific ways of gettingthe needs met. Those are prefer-ences or strategies or requests.So we make a big differencebetween needs and betweenpreferences, requests, strate-gies. So let's get into that, let'sright now connect our feelingswith a need. Let's not go up toour head and think about theother person, let's go into ourheart and connect our feelingwith our need because needsgive us the most power withpeople. See, giraffe is based ona power model, power with peo-ple. It increases our power withthem in the sense that increasespeople's willing giving to us. Toenjoy giving to us. That's powerwith people. We have beentrained in a "power over" model.The use of punishment andreward, that's power over peo-ple. To get them to do things notbecause it's coming from theirheart and they want to contributeto our well-being or to life. No.They want to avoid punishmentor get a reward. So we want toincrease power with people. Andthe most powerful form of com-munication to do that is to bringpeople's attention to our needsthat are not getting met. Whenpeople's full attention is on ourneeds they hear no criticisms,no demands. It is natural toenjoy giving. But if we hear anycriticism or demand we lose con-nection with that natural desireto give and now we want todefend and attack. So let's learna language of needs. Under c) itsays "Imagine again that you'retalking to the person andexpress your reasons for feelingas you do this way: 'When you

do what I described, I feel as Iexpressed because I am need-ing or because I need" So nowsee if you can identify what needof yours is not getting met.Leave the word 'you' out of herebecause that'll mix up need andpreference. Leave the other per-son out of here, just express theneed without reference to theother person. All needs are uni-versal. Every human being in theworld has the same needs soyou can look at what you saidand see whether this applies. Ifwhat you wrote down is a trueneed, every other human beingin the world has that need. We'reall created out of the same ener-gy. So we really see this at thelevel of needs. All human beingshave the same needs. What dif-fers immensely is the strategiesthat we have been educated infor meeting the needs. Differentcultures educate people to meetthe needs in a different way butthe needs are the same. Whowants to check theirs out? Ok... -"...to know that you are responsi-ble and honest." Notice youbrought the other person inthere. "I have a need to knowthat you are responsible andhonest." How do we express theneed without bringing the otherperson in there? No, we canbring it in one way, "I have aneed for your happiness" or"...your protection", we can saythat. You see? But not the wayyou're saying it. Yes... - "I needto be seen and heard as who Itruly am." - "I have a need to beseen and heard as who I trulyam." Ok. - Now I have animpulse to qualify that and say"free". - To be? - Free. - "I havea need to be..."? - The last wordin that sentence is "who I trulyam - free." - I have a need [tobe] who I truly am to be free.Yes, that's a need we all have.The important thing will comeout when we get to a requestbecause that's a request thatonly you can meet. Other peoplecan't do that. They can't meetthat need. So if you don't knowhow to meet that for yourself, forfreedom you won't have thatneed met. - I'm feeling a littlefrustrated because I'm noticingthat everything is a strategy, inother words, mine is a need foran esthetic environment, butunderneath that there is a needfor serenity and my serenitydoesn't come from the environ-

ment, so this entire request start-ing at a) is a strategy to getsomething called serenity. - Ok,that's a need. Then I have aneed for certain peace but isn'tthere a need for certain estheticsthat will... - Right, but it crumblesthe house of cards for me ofwanting the sink not filled withdirty dishes. - Help me under-stand that. If you have a needfor serenity - but that serenitydoesn't come from a clean sink -Ok, then we haven't got the rightneed then. Or it's not that youwant the sink cleaned out - ButI'm projecting that need on to thesink thus on to a behavior ofsomeone else. - Well, if theother person's behavior can begetting in the way of our needgetting met If the dishes aren'tdone, it could be that someneeds of yours are not beingmet by that. Then you have toidentify what the needs are thatare not getting met. - I'm notsure that I'm not basing my... inan assumption that by havingthat sink clean then I'm going tohave serenity and I think it's afalse distinction. - Well, the nicething about being clear aboutour requests is we can test itout. If I say for my need forserenity, I'd really be grateful ifyou would clean up the sink, theperson does it and I'm still notserene, Ok, that helps; I knowthat doesn't work. See, we neverreally know what we want untilafter we get it. If after we get it, itmakes life more miserable, thenwe know that isn't what we want.If it makes life more wonderful,then we know that is what... astrategy that will meet our need.That's what makes life fun; wenever know what we want untilafter we get it. That's why PaulTillich, the theologian, says thatChristianity requires the willing-ness to sin courageously.[Laughter] You ask for what youwant, hoping to meet your needsyou get it, it makes life worse...ok, now I've learned it isn't whatI want Wouldn't it be boring toknow what is right? Yes? -"When ..." OK "When you dowhat I described, I feel as Iexpressed because I needrespect and acknowledgmentand I need to be able to feelsafe in my job environment." - Ihear needs in there, yes. -"When you do what I described,I feel as I express because Ineed to express my desire and

need without it hurting you." -No, no, no, now we got bunch ofstuff in there. If you want toavoid hurting other people, theonly way I can offer you to dothat is to become nice dead per-son. Because if other peoplehave jackal ears, they can gethurt, if you have heartburn. - Sowhat if I just cut off that secondhalf? Just "I need to express mydesire and needs" - Yes, andthen what you want to say toyourself "and I want to learn toenjoy your pain." - Ooo![Laughter] We're going to showyou after lunch how to enjoy theother persons' pain. - Ooo! Thatsounds... - It's one of the mostloving things you can do yousee... As I will define it obviously,I don't mean it in sadistic way,I... Yes? - So I have a couple I'mworking on... One of them is:"Because I have a need for pre-dictability." - "...I have a need forpredictability." Ok. - And theother one: "Because I have aneed for privacy." - Yes - Myneed is for comradeship andacknowledgment of my com-radeship. - Yes - "I have a needto memorialize the life of yourfather and in doing so honor thelife of your entire family." - Youhave a need to nonor is life...Yes. - "I have a need to havecommunication with other peoplethat is open and supportive oflife." - Need for... supporting oflife, openness... ok. - "When youdo this I feel hurt because I havea need to be heard and under-stood." - Very important need,that need for understanding, tobe heard, to be listened to;empathy, there's different waysof expressing it but it's a criticalneed one that we have daily. -"Bottom line: I have a need tolove you and to let you love me."- I have a need to love, but don'tbring the other person in there "Ihave a need to love..." - "...andto let love in" - Yes. See, ourneeds don't... When we believethat our needs involve anotherperson doing something we takea very abundant world and makeit scarce very quickly. So wedon't want to mix up our needinto a request. You may have arequest, a strong request to aparticular person to meet ourneed for love. That's a strategy,we may want this particular per-son, but we don't have a needfor that person to love us. That's

mixing up the need and therequest. We have a need forlove, we have a strong prefer-ence that this person take theactions to meet that need but wedon't want to mix up the needand the strategy. Ok, let's takeone more and then we gottamove on. - I'm confused if this isa need or strategy... - Ok... - "Ineed to feel loved." - Love is avery important word. "I needlove." Yes. But now that wordlove is so important that we gotto get really clear what we meanabout it, when we use it as agiraffe, you see? Watch whathappens when a giraffe and ajackal get together on this lovescene, this is it... Watch thisjackal ask a very dangerousquestion. But notice that thegiraffe is too smart ever toanswer this question, watch! "Doyou love me? - Jackal, before Ican answer your question hon-estly I need to get some impor-tant things clear. Are you usingthe word love as a feeling? -Well, of course! - Ok, well I needto get that clear, so you meanam I feeling certain warmth, cud-dly, tender feelings towards youthen? - Yes - Ok, I needed to getthis clear because you see wegiraffes do not use the word loveas a feeling. It's much too impor-tant to us to get it confused witha feeling. It's a need for us butsince you use it as a feeling, Ok,I'm glad to know that. So wouldplease, now that I know that, askthe question again? - Do youlove me!? - When? [laughing] -When!?? [Laughter] - Well, Iwant to be honest, I can seehow important this is to you buthow can I be honest with youabout what I feel towards you,without reference to a specificmoment? Feelings change everyfew seconds. Life is changing,feelings are part of life. So I'dhave to know a specific time andplace to ever answer your ques-tion of how I feel. - What aboutright now? - No. [Laughing] Buttry me again in a few moments."[Laughing] So you see, to agiraffe love is a need, and it's aneed for which we must be veryclear, about what request do wehave of other people to meetthat need. Now, watch againwhat happens with reference tothat if we are in a love relation-ship with a jackal. "I want to youlove me. - So you have a need

for love, jackal and you're givingme the honor of wanting to meetthat need. - Yes. - I really seehow important that need of loveis so I want to be clear what youwould like from me, to meet yourneed. Could you tell me whatyou're requesting of me to meetyour need?" Now, poor jackals,they don't live in the moment,you see? And to make a clearrequest, you have to live now,you have to be clear what youwant. So watch how the jackalhandles this. "So could you tellme what you want me to do tomeet your need for love? - Oh,you know... - Well, I'm not sure Ido. I really see how importantthis need is for you, so can youtell me specifically what youwould like me to do to meet yourneed for love? - It's hard to sayin so many words. - If it's hardfor you to say, jackal, can yousee how hard will it be for me todo? - I never thought of that. -So what would you like me to doto meet your need for love?[Laughter] - It's embarrassing toget clear. - Yes, it is." Becausemuch of our oppression in closerelationships comes from sayingto people: I want you to respectme, I want you to love me, Iwant you to understand me with-out we being real clear what wewant when we say that. "Sowhat are you wanting, jackal,when you say you want me tolove you? - I want you to guesswhat I want before I even knowwhat it is and I want you alwaysto be willing to do it. - Thank youfor defining it that way, jackal,would you please find someoneelse to meet your need forlove?" [laughing] Most jackalsthat carry that definition of lovearound with them find out howimpossible it is to meet on abouttheir 5th divorce. See, they keepthinking they're going to find aright person to love them, notrealizing that the problem is howthey are defining love and whatthey want from other people tomeet the need for love, to seethat it's impossible to meet thatneed, which brings us to thenext step in the process. How tomake clear requests after wehave expressed our unmetneed? And a clear requestdefined in giraffe is: first, it's apositive action. We say what wedo want, not what we don't want.So a woman gave me a very

good example of what happenswhen you say what you don'twant. In a workshop she said:"You really helped me to under-stand what happened recently,Marshall, I said to my husband:'I don't want you spending somuch time at work' and then Igot furious with him when hesigned up for a golf tournament.[Laughter] A teacher gave me asimilar example, she said: "Justyesterday, Marshall, I said to thisyoung boy: 'Please, I don't wantyou tapping on your book whileI'm talking.' So he started tap-ping on his desk." Saying whatwe don't want doesn't makeclear what we do want. Butworse than that, if we frame ourobjectives in getting rid of some-thing it leads to violence veryoften. It makes violence seemattractive when we try to get ridof something. For example, Iwas working with some teachersin a school in Rockville, Illinois.The observable behavior theywanted to work on, is on theaverage every three month 38broken windows in the school.So we got down to the request. Isaid "What do you want differentfrom the students? - It's obvious,we don't want them breakingwindows. - So you're saying youdon't want the children breakingwindows? - Yes, what should wedo? - Kill them. [Laughter]Research has demonstrated:dead children break no windows.[Laughter] Almost any time wethink of what we want to get ridof, it makes violence look attrac-tive and as stupid as that exam-ple was I just gave you, look atthe newspaper in any given dayand see how many world lead-ers are saying "We're going toteach them not to..." "We'regoing to get them to stop.." Andthey think violence is going to...see? It always makes violenceseem attractive. It's only, as Isaid earlier, when we get twoquestions clear: "What do wewant people to do?" and "Whatdo we want their reasons to befor doing it?" Then I think we'llsee violence never works. Ok,so we want to say what we wantto say in the positive. What dowe want other person to do,what do we want them to startdoing differently? And second, Itneeds to be clear action lan-guage. You can't do what thisone wife did with her husband

who came to a workshop withher, she said: "I want you to lis-ten to me when I talk." He said "Ido listen. - No, you don't. - Yes, Ido. - No, you don't. They told methey had this same conversationfor 11 years. The problem is withthe word 'listen'. What's that?We can use the word 'listen' as aneed. I have a need to be lis-tened to. But when we move torequest, we need to speakaction language. What specificaction do we want this person totake? We can't use the verb 'tobe'. I want you TO BE morefriendly, not doable. We can'tuse feeling language. "I wantyou to feel confidence in your-self." that's not doable. So weneed to be able to make veryconcrete requests. Try it out withwhat is under D) there. "In rela-tion to what the other person didand your feelings and needs inrelation to the action imagineyou're talking directly to the per-son and express a request usingthis form: 'I would like you to...'What do you want the person todo to meet your needs?" - "Iwant you to obey my instruc-tions." [Laughter] - Lets use theword "I want you to do what Itold you to do." "I want you to dowhat I told you to do." And if youwere a giraffe, you would givethat to the person, with a littlecard that said "But please do asI requested only if you can do sowith a joy of a little child feedinga hungry duck. Please, do notdo as I request, if there is anyfear of punishment motivatingyou. Please, do not do as Irequest, out of hope for rewardthat I will like you if you do.Please do not do as I requestout of guilt, shame, duty, obliga-tion. Life is too short to do any-thing for anybody out of that." Sowhat I'm getting at is when wedo make a request we want tobe sure that the person truststhat's a request, and not ademand. So we'll come back tothat. Let's just work on the clarityof the request to begin with. Yes.So, what is your request? - "Iwould like you to do what wasagreed upon." - Ok - "Give methe space to complete mythought." - [Owls] Too vague,"give me the space" - Let me....?- Let me is not doable. Let meshow you what I mean. A womansaid to her husband who cameto a workshop: "I want you to

give me the freedom to bemyself." He says "I do. - No, youdon't." I said "Hold it, hold it.Give me the freedom is notdoable. - Let me..? - No, it's notdoable. - Allow me...? - Notdoable. What do you want fromhim when you say give you thefreedom to be yourself.? - It'sembarrassing. - Yes, it is. Say it!Say it out loud. What do youwant when you say that? - Iwant him to smile and say it's okno matter what I do. - Ok, nowyou're honest." So what do youwant? - I want to express myself. - Yes, you can do that. Nobodycan stop you from expressingyourself. - No, I'm getting inter-rupted - You want the other per-son to wait until your finishedspeaking? - Yes. - Before start-ing? - Yes. - Ok that's the doableaction. So how do we know?You can only tell whether it's arequest or a demand by how Itreat you if you don't do it. That'swhat tells people whether we aremaking requests or demands:what is their memory of how weact when we don't get what wewant? If people have in theirmemory any punishment on ourpart in the past, when they don'tdo what we want, any blame, itwill now be hard for them to trustthat we are making a requestand not a demand, it will takethe joy out of giving to us. Solets follow that example a littlebit more for me to show youwhat I mean so I say to you, "I'mreally lonely this evening andhave the need for some compa-ny, would you be willing to spendthe evening with me?" And yousay "Marshal I'm really preoccu-pied with some things at workand I really need some space tomyself this evening, could youfind someone else to be with youthis evening? And here is myreaction, [Laughter] [More laugh-ter] Two days later. [Laughter]You "what's the matter? -Nothing!" You "Come on, what'sthe matter? - You knew howlonely I was... If you loved me..."Now, was that a request or ademand? - Demand. So we can'ttell from how nicely it is asked,we need to see how the persontreats us when we don't do whatthey want. That's when we trustthat they make requests and notdemands. So we are going topay for every time in the past,when we used any coercive

means to get what we wanted.Now at least we don't want topay for that any more. We wantto be sure that whenever wemake a request it is a requestthat doesn't mean the other per-son will trust us, even if it isbecause, unfortunately, there'sbeen so much coercion in ourworld that, even if we are mak-ing a sincere request, the otherperson might hear a demand. Iwas working in one school sys-tem, with a group of studentsthat the school district labeled as"socially and emotionally malad-justed." Now from what you havelearned today was that at jackalschool system or a giraffe schoolsystem? Yes? - It sounds like inyour example that the personwas really disappointed or reallylet down. - Not let down, that's adiagnosis. - Ok. - They werereally disappointed, really hurt. -Ok. So how could they haveexpressed that without being ademand but not suppressing thefact that they're really disap-pointed? - They could say "Soyou have a lot to do right nowand it would really meet yourneed to be by yourself - Yeah. -And... the kind of mood I'm inright now I really trust that youwould meet it better than any-body else I know, is there someway that we could find to getyour work done and still meetmy need for connection tonight?"That's what we call dogging forour needs. [Laughter] Thatshows respect for the other per-son's needs. I'm not trying to useany guilt or manipulation, right?I'm just trying now to find a wayto get everybody's needs metOk? - So, then, what if the per-son can't find replacement? - Ifthe person can not think ofsomebody to replace them it willnot be a problem, it will only bea problem if I put on these earsand receive in what they said arejection. If I hear a rejection,that's the problem. - [Inaudible]You can say "I'm disappointed",as long as you don't say "youdisappoint me" and as long asyou don't stop after saying "I'mdisappointed." "I'm disappoint-ed." that's just another way ofsaying "You disappointed me";we always have to end the feel-ing... at the very end of it there isgoing to be a request. We don'tjust say "I'm disappointed". Wehave to say, we have to take

responsibility, for asking for whatwe want. Giving the other per-son has this other need, what doyou want then from them? Wellthe jackal doesn't like that game.They don't like to have to beresponsible for what they want.They'd rather say "Well if they'dloved me..." "If they were anykind of friend..." "I think it's onlyfair that they..." They want tocontrol by guilt, shame... So, theschool district asked me to workwith these students that werelabeled "socially and emotionallymaladjusted." Poor school sys-tem doesn't realize that labelslead to self-fulfilling prophecies.When you label people that waythey're going to behave that way.Come on, be honest, if you werelabeled socially and emotionallymaladjusted and you were oneof those students, doesn't thatgive you permission to have funin school? [Laughter] Labelsleads to self-fulfilling prophecies.So I knew it was going to be arough day just by that label, sowhen I walk into the classroom italready starts. Half of the stu-dents are hanging out the win-dow screaming obscenities attheir friends on the courtyarddown below, so I made arequest "Excuse me, I would likeyou all to come on over and sitdown please. I'd like to tell youwho I am and what I liked to dotoday." Half the students comeover. I wasn't sure the other halfhad even heard me so I repeat-ed it, "Would you all pleasecome over?" Now everybodycomes over with the exception oftwo young men. Just my luck thetwo that didn't come over werethe biggest ones in the class-room and again I wasn't too surethey'd heard me and was pray-ing it might just be a problemwith acoustics, so I said: "Wouldone of you two gentleman tellme please what you heard mesay?" - Yeah, you said that wehad to come over and sit down."See the problem? I make arequest, he hears a demand. SoI said "Sir," (I have learnedalways use 'Sir' with people thathave biceps like he did especial-ly with a tattoo on top of thebicep) I said "Sir, could you tellme how I could have let youknow what I was requesting, soit wouldn't sound like I wastelling you what you have todo?" He said "huh?" [Laughter]

See, that's a radical paradigmshift for somebody who's beeneducated under domination con-ditions. Domination structures,where authorities claim to knowwhat's right you have to do it, orelse... See? So that's a radicalparadigm shift. In giraffe schoolspeople don't make demands,they just make requests and Irealize that it's not going to beeasy with this gentleman. He'sprobably carrying with him lot oftraces of being punished whenhe doesn't do what other peoplewant, or blame and I'm notexpecting him to give it up likethat. So I said "Sir, how can I letyou know that I was requestingsomething of you without itsounding like I was bossing youaround? - I don't know." I said"Just what's happening betweenyou and me right now is muchthat I wanted to talk abouttoday." I was wanting to look at away that we could interact wherenobody bosses others around.And I didn't expect life to be soeasy and it was all he needed,he trusted at that point that Iwasn't trying to tell him what todo and he came over and wehad a very cooperative day. Butas long as people hear ourrequests as demands they haveonly two choices: submission orrebellion. And neither of thosewill connect us with people in away that's good for anybody. Sothe main thing that's the differ-ence is not how nicely we say itbut how we treat people whenthey don't do what we want.Now, let's hear a few of these,so we can see what kind ofreactions you might get back ifyou openly express your heart,you try your best not to criticizenot to demand, what do you getback? - "She gets excited anddefends herself." - I need to heara specific statement, because Idon't know what you mean by"defends herself." What doesshe say? You got to be specific.For the next exercise we need toknow specifically what the per-son says or does. See, that'syour diagnosis that she's defen-sive. What does she say? -"Sometimes things happen andI'm not ready to leave when weagreed." - "Well sometimesthings happen and I'm not readyto leave when we agreed." Ok,that's what the person says. - "Ican't do that because I have a

hard time connecting with peopleas partners." - "I can't do thatbecause I have a hard time con-necting with people as partners."- This is their response back... -Yes, what would the personrespond back? - He says"Nothing I do is ever goodenough." - "Nothing I do is evergood enough." -OK. Here... Iguess I should go through thewhole thing. She says that she"doesn't like the way I washdishes or make the bed." - Yes. -"I feel angry and resentful." -Yes. - "I feel as I expressedbecause I need to be acceptedfor my willingness and ability todo a job the way I do it." - Yes -"I would like you to acknowledgemy work positively. - "Even if Idon't feel like it?" How would youlike me to respond positivelywhen an idiot could do a betterjob making a bed than you do?"- Ok, that's the last thing. Shewould say that she can'tbecause I never do it the way itshould be done. - So the prob-lem there is with a presentrequest. What do you want fromthis person? I think what youwant is this: "I'd like at leastsome gratitude expressed for mywillingness to do what I did, andif I can get at least the gratitudefor that first I could better hearhow would you like me to do itdifferently." Would that be clos-er? - It would be closer, but I'dstill like her to accept the waythat I do it. - There's "acceptme", now we got to translate"accept" into a doable request.What if this person has a senseof aesthetics? You see, I canalready tell what the problem isin your relationship. I alreadymade a diagnosis, want to hearmy diagnosis? - Ok. You are aslob and she's a neat. There'sthese two kinds of people in theworld: slobs and neats. And forsome reason or other theyalways live together. [Stronglaughter] It doesn't make senseto me, you see? There is somuch of this that goes on every-day about not washing the dish-es, how to make a bed. I'll giveaway which one I am. I oncecleaned the house immaculatelyand my partner came home andsaid "I thought you were going toclean." True story, so you knowwhat I am, right? [Laughter] Iwrote her a song that night thatgoes: "If you wonder about the

cause of my domestic distress,it's that my partner is an antisep-tic and I'm total mess."[Laughter] "Last night at 2am Ihad to go to the head [restroom]and in the time it took me, shemade the bed." [Laughter] [MoreLaughter] There are these slobsand neats and they always gettogether. I have a plan for worldpeace: put the slobs in onehemisphere and the neats inanother. - So how does that getback to needs and...? [Stronglaughter] Now that you diag-nosed her, how would you han-dle it? - It has to do probablywith this. You have to say to theneat: "I'd like you to agree thatthere can be different ways ofdoing things." Is that what youwant? - My solution was that Ijust don't do it anymore. [Stronglaughter] - A typical slob solution,yes. I could have guessed that. -It worked. [Laughter] - "I wouldreally like some acknowledge-ment. First I'd like some expres-sion of gratitude for what I did.I'm not saying you have to like it,but I'd like to hear some grati-tude, if it's sincere, that at leastthat I was trying. Second, I'd likeyou to agree that there can bedifferent ways of defining what'san adequate way to make a bed.Then if after you agree to that, ifyou could say what your prefer-ence would be without usingwords that imply that it's rightyour way. That would be a loteasier on me." Something likethat. - "You sound like you'redoing something out of a book."- "You sound like you're doingsomething out of a book. Talklike a real person. Don't use anyof this psychology crap on me."Something like that, yes, yes.Especially they're going to saythat when you're a baby giraffe,because you're trying a newway, it's going to take a while,it's gonna go slowly. When I wasfirst learning this, I was having aconflict with my oldest son and Iwas sounding like it was comingout of a book. I was having tostop and think everything I saidand the poor guy he had hisfriends waiting for him and hesaid: "Daddy, it's taking you solong to talk." I said: "Let me tellyou what I can say quickly. Do itmy way or I'll kick your ass!"[Laughter] [More Laughter] Hesaid "Take your time, dad."[Laughter] Those who knew me

in my old jackal days are verypatient with my sounding like I'mcoming out of a book. Yes? -There's no value in changingwho I am. I'm satisfied the way itis." - Yes, "There's no value inchanging who I am. I'm satisfiedthe way I am." We can alreadytell that this person has heard ademand, you see? They're hear-ing a demand as thou you'resaying you're not ok the waythey are and that would be how,I bet, a person would respond ifthey hear demand. Differentways that people respond whenthey hear a demand. My prefer-ence is... for how my youngestson once responded when heheard a demand. I said "Wouldyou please hang up your coat?"He said "Who was your slavebefore I was born?" [Laughter][More Laughter] I like that waybecause I know he hears ademand, right? It's pretty clear.Then there's other people whoit's harder to guess if they'rehearing it as a demand. Forexample, you say to him: "Wouldyou please come over and justsit on the couch with me and talkwith me?" The person goes likethis... "Ok." Now if you aresmart, you'll say: "Oh no, stayaway." They are hearing ademand, you see? But they aregiving in. But the worst casescenario, this is the dangerousone, you see is if the personhears your request as a demandand then respond this way: "Ohsure, I'll do it." And they do it.But they did it to buy your love.They did it because they wereafraid that if they didn't youwouldn't like them. Now, how willyou find out? You'll find outeventually. You might find outlike this one woman did, whoshowed up at my door... 2 in themorning. Two in the morning mydoor bell rings, it's pouring rainoutside and this woman, not 8months pregnant, crying. I said"Come in, come in!" I sat herdown on a chair. "What's goingon?" I didn't know how she gotthere but she told me that hermother had been in a workshopwith me a month before and shehad just called her mother up totell her about what happenedand the mother said "Oh, there'sa man in your town that youmight want to go and talk to." Sothat's how this woman shows upat my door at 2 in the morning.

Now what was the problem?She said [sobbingly] "I just madea little request to my husbandand he said 'get out!' We'vebeen married 8 years, he'salways been so loving, so kind,he's done everything I want andnow he says 'get out'." Already Iknew what the problem was. Hewas a 'yes-saying-jackal'. Hehears somebody he loves wantssomething and he feels he hasto do it to buy love, to prove thathe's a loving person. And sohow does she find this out? Ittook 8 years, but then she paysfor it one night. And I know I wasright. How do I know that I wasright? I got him out of bed.[Laughter] Why should I be up at2 in the morning talking to hiswife, while he's sleeping?[Laughter] So I called him upand invite him over and sureenough you see, he was a 'yes-saying-jackal'. He just didn'tknow how to say no. So he hadbeen giving in for all these yearsand finally this night he snapped.That's the way you'll find out.After 8 years she found out thathe was hearing demands andlovingly giving in to them. Youcertainly don't want to everreceive those messages anyonethat you just responded to. Younever want to hear what otherperson thinks. Never hear whata jackal speaking person thinks.You'll live longer. So certainlyafter lunch we are going to say:"Do not hear what the personthought!" Whatever thoughtsthey expressed never hear whata jackal-speaking person thinksespecially what they think aboutyou. So we'll show you otheroptions than that. We'll show youhow never to hear criticism. We'llshow you all of that after lunch.